


Someone’s Playing the Pink Panther Theme, Right?

by Hinn_Raven



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Angst and Humor, Chorus Trilogy (Red vs. Blue), Gen, Humor, Infiltration, Introspection, Season/Series 12, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 03:39:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15810570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hinn_Raven/pseuds/Hinn_Raven
Summary: Carolina infiltrates Locus’ squad. There are some close calls.





	Someone’s Playing the Pink Panther Theme, Right?

**Author's Note:**

> This comes from two places: one, me joking about how Locus is oblivious and failed to notice Carolina infiltrating his squad, and the other, me pointing out that Carolina infiltrating his squad means she potentially witnessed some fucked up shit before revealing herself. I didn't go all the way with the second one, because I wanted to write something on the lighter side, but then she started thinking about her dead friends, and so we now have the "angst and humor" tag once again. Oh well. Hope you guys enjoy!

Carolina’s method of stealth relies on two things:

One, a standardized system of armor so that her camouflage can do the rest of the job for her.

Two, no one to talk to her directly.

It’s not that Carolina’s _bad_ at espionage. Or stealth. Or…

Look, she’s _not bad at it,_ okay?

She’s _not_.

Shut up, Epsilon.

So she’s tripped some motion sensors in her day. So _what_ if she can never come up with a good excuse whenever someone asks her why she’s not on patrol?

She can just fight her way out of the situation, okay? _She’s fine_.

She’s fine.

Really.

Look, at least she’s not Tex, okay? Tex _blew up places to make sure no one ever saw her_.

 _She’s fine, Epsilon_.

 _Stop fussing, Epsilon_.

The point is, infiltrating Locus’s squad is going to go _fine_. The helmet she’s wearing is one that belonged to one of the pirates, even if it’s not standard-issue. A voice-coder, one unconscious body hidden behind one of the warthogs, and the pounding sense of _too-late_ later, she’s awkwardly standing in front of Locus for inspection, alongside a dozen other soldiers.

She’s using the old method from Freelancer to avoid attention, one that she’d seen York use a dozen times. She’d never needed it of course, and it had never been possible. The Director’s attention had never been hers to determine if she received or not. She was either hyper-visible, all her flaws exposed under his keen gaze, or completely invisible, no matter how good she was. There was no state of in-between. No amount of hiding or deflection could have concealed her when she was tired, or injured, or late.

York, however, had taught her that the best method to avoid detection was to be after the most likely to be trouble in a squad. Not _directly_ after, he’d explained once, over a bottle of beer after a mission gone sideways in the early days, because then the CO is hyper-on-edge, looking for something to critique in the next person too, but one spot after that, or even two, if it’s been a bad mission.

< _This is a bad idea, this is a terrible idea, **why are they having an inspection we just got here** this is the WORST idea ever oh god oh god we’re gonna get caught >_

_< **Epsilon.**_ **>**

< _Right, sorry, okay, focusing. > _

Sometimes, she had to wonder if Alpha had been as anxious as Epsilon.

< _Rude. > _

The guy she’s chosen to stand two down from is a man who failed to fasten the shoulder plate of his armor correctly. If the data she and Epsilon have gathered on Locus is correct—and Epsilon hums, annoyed in her mind, insistent that it is correct, how dare she assume otherwise, the two of them are the _best_ at gathering intel—he won’t tolerate that. Her own armor is in perfect shape, maintained with the help of the best A.I.—Epsilon glows with pleasure at that thought, adjacent to but not interrupting her internal monologue—so she’ll be fine there.

The one danger is that Locus _does_ know all his people, that he _has_ read every file, or worse, that he’s read the file that Epsilon spoofed up for Carolina’s alias and realizes that something’s wrong.

Anxiety trickles down her throat, choking her for a moment before sinking down, hard and slow, like a rock into her stomach, and she can’t tell if it’s Epsilon’s or her own.

Everything depends on her succeeding here.  

Locus goes down the line, efficient and brutal in his pace. He unbraids three soldiers for miniscule problems with their armor or weapons, he dresses down another for having missed a check-in— _oh shit he does pay attention to his soldiers, oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit_.

He’s just about to get to her, and Epsilon is frantically buzzing in the back of her mind, planning escape routes, searching for ways out, and she’s barely able to breathe, just trying to stop radiating guilt and fear and anything else that could tip him off.

He’s turned that strange, eyeless helmet towards her, and she feels herself about to fall over the edge, the anxiety turning into adrenaline, flight becoming fight, when the door slams open and a man in orange armor arrives.

“Locus!” He shrieks, and she places the voice. Felix. The traitor within the New Republic.

He’s… shorter than she expected, after Locus. Locus is the largest man she’s seen since Maine, larger than Caboose or any of the other pirates. Locus is broad and wide, built for close combat but a sniper. A contradiction.

But Felix… oh, there’s no mistaking what he’s built for. Skinny but muscled, shorter than Locus but average height overall… bristling with pride and knives alike.

He’s the one to watch for. He fights dirty.

Locus’s attention skitters away from her, refocusing on something far more relevant, and she’s left on the edge, her fingers inches away from fists.

“How far out are they?” Locus demands.

“Not here yet,” Felix says, crossing his arms. “But I saw the battle plan you had drawn up, and I’ve got _complaints_.”

… a battle plan?

Fuck.

She hadn’t known there was an actual _plan_ yet.

Neither had Epsilon, apparently.

“Dismissed all of you,” Locus snapped, freeing Carolina from discovery. She can’t help but breathe in relief, and smirk to herself, knowing that he’s just doomed his whole operation, letting her go like that. Locus turns his entire focus towards Felix, but doesn’t say anything, while the pirates turn and scatter.

< _He doesn’t want anyone to see Mommy and Daddy fight. > _Epsilon sniggers in the back of her mind

_< Very professional of him.>_

_< Ugh, seriously? The guy’s a dick.>_

_< Still a professional.>_

_< Is that **approval?** You better not have a crush!> _

_< Don’t be stupid. Now where can we get those battle plans?>_

Epsilon doesn’t know, but he’s got a few suggestions, which Carolina supposes is better than nothing.

The two of them dart through the halls, still careful about the pirates.

< _Careful, camera! > _

_< Can’t you short-circuit it?>_

_< Well, yeah, it just takes a second, so stand still!>_

_< Getting slow, are you?>_

_< Hey, hey, if you were better at watching your corners, I wouldn’t have to!> _

They locate a control room, which will hopefully have… something, at least. Data of some kind, if not the actual battle plans.

Battle plans for how Felix and Locus intend to murder all their friends.

The humor, the banter, the comradery within Carolina’s mind evaporates in an instant at that reminder.

Their friends are in danger. The guys are in danger.

The fact that Felix and Locus have been close for so long… Carolina doesn’t know details—communications are hard to listen into on Chorus, even with Epsilon’s wide-sweeping abilities. But Locus has been mirroring Wash’s location for a while, and there are _rumors_ about Felix and the Simulation Troopers.

Close enough to trust, close enough to hurt, close enough to kill.

Carolina’s fingers clench into fists at the thought.

There’s an irony to her position here, an infiltrator amid the infiltrators, the double agent within the double agents, the traitor of traitors.

She finds some satisfaction within that… but not as much satisfaction as she’ll find beating Locus and Felix’s faces in for daring to plan to hurt her friends.

She remembers Wash’s shouts on the radio, his pleas for help, for rescue.

Things went wrong, so quickly, and she hadn’t even realized it at the time, thinking they were _safe_ , or as safe as anyone could be during this civil war. Once she took down the pirates, she’d be able to secure a ship for them and get them all to safety, but she had to make sure that Freelancer’s toxic legacy wasn’t going to claim any more lives, and the pirates were the source of that, and they were keeping the ships down too, so really, she was helping them—

Her excuses putter out in her own mind, hollow.

She should have gone to them earlier, and she knows it.

She’d needed space, needed to try to make things right, to shake off her father’s ghost, she’d seen a chance, and she’d taken it, not saying goodbye and damn the consequences.

And now… here were the consequences.

She has to live with that.

Carolina reaches out to try the door, secure in the knowledge that Epsilon had unlocked it already and grins to herself.

“Hey! What are you doing?”

 _Fuck_.

A pirate turns the corner—the one she’d been planning to use as a human shield earlier, clearly on edge, his armor now in place, bristling from the reprimand.

Oh, of all the—she is so fucked.

“Huh?” She asked, trying to channel Maine’s ability to fake nonchalance. No one ever questioned _Maine_.

< _That’s because he was eight feet tall and literally made of muscle! >_

… right.

Carolina wants to take a moment to curse the unfairness of the entire situation, because honestly, she is _way_ scarier than Maine, or at least Maine-before-Meta.

But she’ll have to do that later, because right now she’s being caught red handed.

“Isn’t this, the uh,” she says, trying to think of what Wash would do. “Ladies room?”

Carolina hadn’t known she could literally feel it when an A.I. facepalmed, but she could, apparently.

“What? No!”

“Oh, sorry,” she says, stepping away. “I—I just—”

He’s recovered from his bafflement at her excuse and is about to ask her in more detail, or even worse, ask for help, when Locus comes on the intercom. “ _Assemble_ ,” he orders. “ _There’s been a change in plan._ ”

The pirate groans. “Great. I bet Felix made us scrap the landmines, so he could _monologue._ ”

“He does like to do that,” Carolina says, trying to keep her tone light. She… she can use that. Monologuing. That gives her time. That means he has to keep them _alive_.

Thank God for mercenaries who like to hear himself speak and can annoy their professional partners into letting him have his way.

“You’re telling _me_ ,” the pirate mutters, stomping his feet heavily as they head back into the main room.

Carolina swallows, then follows him.

They get their orders and Carolina tastes bile.

She kills her partner, the man who’s supposed to help her murder the Federal Soldiers, and she sets off the fire alarm in the barrack she’s supposed to execute, so they run.

(She’ll learn later the second wave of pirates caught them in a crossfire before they could make it out, and she throws up until there’s nothing left.)

She’s getting mixed reports, she doesn’t know where the Reds and Blues or Wash are, and so she runs into the infirmary, because she’s heard a rumor that Wash was injured.

She doesn’t find Wash, but she does find a very angry doctor.

“Stay down!” Carolina pushes her down, her heart racing, because another squad was assigned the infirmary. “I can get you out of here, just—”

A scalpel presses against her neck. “And why should I trust you, sweetie?”

“Because otherwise, you’re dead.” She swallows. “Get out of here and find the Reds and Blues, okay?” She shows the doctor a way out through the vents, and then tries to see if she can get any other survivors out.

She doesn’t find any other survivors.

She does find a group of pirates.

Fuck.

 “What the fuck are you doing here?” She’s looking down the barrel of a gun, and man, she _really_ doesn’t like that. “You’re the new girl, aren’t you?” There’s just enough of a sneer, enough of a leer, there, that Carolina doesn’t even have to hesitate before channeling South. She _should_ draw from Connie, or York, or Florida, or really anyone else, really, but Carolina wants to knock this guy down a peg, and she’s itching for a fight, itching to put this fucker in her place.

There are dead bodies in the room behind him, because Carolina couldn’t protect them, and she can’t avenge them yet, not if she wants to save her friends, but she wants to… something. She needs to make amends, somehow.

“I saw someone run out of here,” she says, lifting her chin in the air, like she’s not scared, like she thinks they’re being stupid, like they’re beneath her. “I killed her and came in to see if you guys needed help blowing your noses or wiping your asses too.”

The gun lowers. “Bitch,” the pirate mumbles.

“Hey, do your job, so I don’t have to,” she says flippantly, even though Epsilon is screaming at her not to make fun of the murderers, they have _guns_ , Carolina, they could _kill you,_ Carolina.

“We just got the word from Locus,” another one says. “Get ready for the box.”

“Alright then,” Carolina says. “Let’s get this over with.”

She carefully gets herself placed right next to Locus, who looks her over one last time.

“You, soldier,” he says. “What’s your name?”

_Fuck._

“Carol—Carol. Carol—” _Shit fuck._ “Church.” **_Fuck_** _._

Epsilon is dead quiet in her brain with disbelief at how bad she fucked that up.

Locus, however, simply nods and turns his attention. “Remember to use your camouflage,” he orders them, and Carolina _can’t believe she’s getting away with this_.

< _How are you getting away with this? >_

_< **I don’t know**. > _

The two of them activate the active camouflage in sync with everyone else and walk forward towards her friends.

< _Be careful you don’t **trip** ,> _Epsilon says, sulky.

< _Shut up, Epsilon. >_

_< I’m just saying, this is why we don’t do stealth missions!>_

_< We did it, didn’t we?>_

He has no response for a moment.

Then, as they decloak, aiming a gun at their friends, he finally speaks up again.

< _I guess we did. > _

Carolina grins and allows herself to stop being scared that things are going to go wrong.

She’s made it this far. Locus and Felix are going to _pay_.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys enjoyed! I'm @secretlystephaniebrown on tumblr if you want to come hang out with me there!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Someone’s Playing the Pink Panther Theme, Right?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15936344) by [GoLBPodfics (GodOfLaundryBaskets)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GodOfLaundryBaskets/pseuds/GoLBPodfics)




End file.
